A man I used to know died last week.

I have known him (Brian) for some years and he was a good man. He left Zimbabwe for the greener pastures of South Africa and worked as a driver, a factory worker, and at one time a burgler and rober. He visited Botswana, and Swaziland.

When the going was good he had a live-in girl for his sexual needs. When the going was no so good he just had sex workers when he could afford. This is the thing. All women like to exchange money for sex. Just that those who do not work as sex workers do not get paid directly. The want a man when he has money and they leave him when he has no money. Just like us.

He married a South African girl and has a baby by her, an HIV positive baby. When she found out he was HIV positive, she left him and married another man who is now also HIV positive from having sex with her. The baby will hopefully die before its mother and the new husband die.

I travelled to Zimbabwe for his funeral when I heard. I got there to find his body was delayed at Beit Bridge crossing point. Mugabe's government, realising the business potenial of receiving bodies of citizens who die outside the country has devised a method of earning forex from the trade. USD180 is the fee for looking at the dead man's passport and accepting that he is Zimbabwean. The guy who signs the papers on behalf of the government wants back handers of Rand 400. He is a magistrate of the Republic of Zimbabwe at Beit Bridge. I wonder if Mugabe gets a cut from that trade.

I never had sex with Brian whom I saw as my big brother. He died at 33 years of age. He was the sole bread winner for his sister and mother in Zimbabwe. As we were listening to the farewell speeches, the price of goods in Zimbabwe doubled during the period it took to deliver the speechs.